I am having a chemistry day today around the house. That's the only way I can get my head doing the housework. Himself came out in a very nasty rash at the thought of it... no it wasn't the Borax and Lemon Juice I was using! We think he got bitten by a wasp while out picking some Damsons in another jam frenzy. He refused the instant remedy of Bicarb and water mix, which would have done the job nicely, but insisted I went to buy a £4.87 bottle of Eurax. They couldn't find the calamine lotion in the chemist! Ahhhh.. .. .. bless, He is feeling much better for some expensive TLC.Well, I was sort of thinking about the diet changes we have had over the last 50 years, I suppose that's a lingering thought of those crisp packets and glass lemonaid bottles. I think I was also sparked off by watching the first part of the 'Mermaid's Tears' Documentary on RT. We are simply up to our eyeballs with plastic packaging. Get thee to a home made ginger beer recipe and re-use some of the flip top glass beer bottles.I just can't understand why everyone who wants to drink bought coffee, doesn't buy a stainless steel thermos mug with a cap on it, they are about the same size as a large coffee, and ask to have it filled. You can give it a rinse, and get more coffee in it during the day, then give it a proper wash in the evening. If there was a worldwide campagn to do this, I am sure all the coffee shops would knock off the cost of the plastic container, or add an extra 20p to the cost of the coffee to cover the wages of someone going round and picking up all the cups everyone drops all over the place.Back to my Bicarb,One of the thoughts I had was about how much Bicarb I use, and all the things I use it for. There are tons more things, just look it up on the web. My daily use is to clean my teeth, which works fine. I realy hate toothpaste going all frothy and dribbling everywhere, and splashing on mirrors. Also I get to digest a little bit of Bicarb which is an antacid, not that I suffer with it.There is a lot more that Bicarbonate of Soda gets up to with a bit of encouragement. Drain cleaning with some vinager is very rewarding. I do like a bit of a chemical reaction, it's such a pity younger children these days don't get to do proper chemistry like we did. If nothing else learning some COSHH and PPC is very useful.Well the other thing that very few people have these days is time to consider the amount of very processed foods they eat, and the amount of candida yeasts that this causes to proliferate in their gut. This then migrates through the gut wall into the blood stream, and is the trigger for guess what... yup, cancerous tumours and growths.Well, If you wonder why we make our own jam, and prepare most of our own food check this; http://altmedangel.com/additive.htmand this; http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/processed-foods.htmlNow there are a few simple steps that can completely change a whole raft of problems. You don't actually need to go on an all out war to detox your body as most of these carcinogenic factors are fine so long as you don't let them have a billy hoo party 365 days a year. In fact one of the reasons for the traditional 40 day fast in most eastern cultures, that migrated to the west from Judaism, (via Christianity) is that this gives your gut and whole body a rest, It was a physical spring clean, to go along with the spiritual one.It would be interesting to do a bit of research on the incidence of cancer in two groups, ones that don't do a fast annually, and ones that do. Fasting doesn't mean going hungry or 'giving up', it just means an annual change of diet for a specified period. Forget fad dieting, this is more about a 'health spa' break over 40 days or so at home.One of the things that our western shopping habits has very quickly replaced is that even 25 years ago we did not eat such processed foods that were the scraps and chemically recovered mulch mixed with a lot of other gunk and colouring sold in plastic containers. We did eat SPAM! Which was effectively the same thing, but it came in a tin with a wind off opening key. We very occasionally had SPAM FRITTERS! It was just a British thing I think, people my age ask each other what their Mums did with SPAM, it's usually a good discussion over a bottle of wine and a few home made toasts and a smear of home made pate.I suspect there is little food value in the 2000 odd calories a day most people consume, which is why they need to eat more to get the actual things their body is craving. It is possible that all the kids who are overwight are actually mal-nourished. This might be a ridiculous idea, but the body has to store toxins in fat (that it can't process), so the obvious reason a child is fat, is not because it is being overfed, or under excercised, it is because the child can't get rid of the toxic burden of todays foods.The interesting thing is that when I eat home made foods I am satisfied very quickly with a far smaller quantity. When I buy something for a snack from a supermarket I feel like a void has opened up in my head that my stomach can't fill.I went out to a little fund raising quiz night social in St Ouen last night with friends. Once I started on the crispy snacky things I ended up pigging out on two platefuls of them. We actually had a number of refills of these plates, and I couldn't help it. The moment I started on them it was like this black hole had opened up into another dimension and my mouth was the porthole sucking every corn snack towards it, like light disappearing into an event horizon. What do these foods have in them that switches off our 'not hungry' button? I felt like a Labrador. They eat until they explode. Yes our team won the quiz.What happens if this is the food you get every day? You want to eat yourself silly! I still didn't feel full after sandwiches and cake after the snacks. I just felt uncomfortable. Now I am having a crave moment that's worse than wanting a cigarette when you have tobacco and run out of papers. I just settled for 2 sheets of japanese seaweed. That killed the need.Now first off look up how to make soda bread, which is soooo easy. Delicious as well. It has to be eaten fresh each day. Try making this with whole flour. I like brown, and I also treat myself to Kamut, which is a very ancient egyptian grain. It is expensive but very much worth it because I need a lot of digestible selinium.When you think how much people spend on vitimin and mineral suppliments that are probably not as effective as real food, I prefer to buy the flour, and actual food ingredients. If I am snacking, or browsing round the kitchen, a bit of home made bread with some jam, (and lots of butter) fills me up nicely until a mealtime. Better that than a lot of empty calories from the sweet shop that cost a fortune, and give you spots from a candida fueled acne fest.Look up how to make buscuits, and find a recipe for something like a digestive buscuit crossed with an oatcake. These are good for snacky things and for cheese and savory as well as a smear of jam for something sweet. I like experimenting, and as I am baking tomorrow I will try making something new in the buscuit department. Home made cheeze straw bits are nice.Well back to the old Bicarbonate of Soda. We all used to joke that our parents and granparents boiled the cabbage until it turned into a sort of dull green slime, but there was a reason for this. The celulose in these types of veggies also cause a lot of problems to our digestion if they are not broken down first. It's ok to eat raw veg juices, and a small amount of the brassicas raw, but uncooked they are a naughty gas making lot of green fiends. This was duly remedied by our illustrious forbears with a teaspoon of bicarb in with most cooked veg to 'keep it green' when they cooked it to death. This of course meant that all us kids who had to subsist on mounds of unbuttered cabbage and brussels sprouts also got to consume vast quantities of bicarb, so we didn't get such bad acne problems either. We didn't have enough pocket money to buy sweets more than once a week, and we did not have very many sweet tooth deserts, as our tolerance for sweetness was a lot more sensitive.You can deep fry finely shredded cabbage as a substitute for deep fried seaweed with chinese food, and any leftover cabbage is great for bubble and squeak, or colquanon potato. I fancy trying some in a jacket potato for dinner tomorrow, rather than with the mash, as I bought a beautiful Savoy cabbage for dinner tonight as veg. We Have a nice bit of Angus we have been saving for a couple of weeks to look forward to, this will be lovely cold tomorrow with a Jacket and some salad from the garden. Well Himself spotted the Huge lump of Beef in the supermarket, down from over £30 quid to under £20 on sell by date. I cut it into two decent Joints of about 1lb 14 oz, Then sliced and bashed out the rest into minute steaks for stir fry and luxury steak breakfasts. I had about 16 steaks packed into packets of 4 weighing 3-4oz. packed between greaseproof sheets. All went straight into the freezer. We had one pack with fajitas a few nights ago, so you don't have to pig out on meat every day. We will probably have a pig out tonight, and find the rest will do for tomorrow dinner and a sandwich the day after. The Dog does get a little taste and some gravy!Snacky Plastic thoughts.I think those snacks are addictive, I also think we need much smaller quantities of real food that we respect and don't waste. I also think we need to shop at the butcher and the greengrocer and farm shop, and insist we do not buy food in plastic that needs disposing of. We used to get meat wrapped in greaseproof type paper, then a bit of clean unprinted newspaper, then some Newspaper. I would be happy to take a container to the butcher, and have all my meat just put in my own containers and bags to take home. I am sure that could be done at the butchers and fish department at the supermarket, and just put the cost on the hand held device you get to add your bill up as you go round, so they don't even have to print a lable to scan, that they then have to stick on the plastic bag, which isn't the best way to pack meat anyway.Much nicer to have a chat with the local butcher though, and have a provenence sticker on your meat dispayed so you know what farm it came from.

My Mum always made a desert after our dinner, 'What's for dinner'? was always swiftly followed by, 'What's for pudding'? That's when we got something sweet. We have apple pie tonight.Back to that BicarbIt is interesting that there are some people who think that Cancers and Tumours are caused by fungus infections that, then cause mutation in the cells in the body. It just makes sense that now we don't use Bicarbonate of Soda, many more people get Cancer.Perhaps we do our s'elfs a great service when we take time to learn the old ways, Just buy your Bicarb at the Chemist, as Sodium Bicarbonate if it's cheaper than the supermarket, who sell it as Bicarbonate of Soda. Buy some Cream of Tartar as well and you will have granny's baking powder handy all the time!Try doing a search on Sodium Bicarbonate and Cancer, you might be surprised.